FROM THIS EPISODE

The Lebanese army is deploying equipment and soldiers south
of the Litani River,
but France
may be backing away from its promise to lead a peacekeeping force.That development… and the impact of Hezbollah’s success on
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
Plus, a federal judge rules that the NSA's warrentless wiretaps are
illegal, and the US Coast Guard arrests a leader of one of Mexico's
major drug smuggling rings.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 stopped the fighting in southern Lebanon with the promise that France would help enforce it by leading a 15,000 member peacekeeping source. Today, the French newspaper Le Monde reported that France is scaling back to a "symbolic" contingent of 10 officers and 200 engineers. Meantime, as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority talk about forming a "unity government, there's a threat to dissolve all civil institutions and demand that Israel keep order in the West Bank and Gaza. Has the success of Hezbollah emboldened militants or will it lead to diplomacy in the region's oldest conflict? What about Israel's plan to pull out of the West Bank? We get an update from the UN and the Palestinian territories, where events have been out of the limelight because of the fighting in Lebanon.

Yesterday, off the coast of Mexico, the US Coast Guard boarded a fishing boat and arrested Javier Arellano Felix, the leader of what US officials call the "most violent drug-trafficking operation in the Tijuana-Baja California area." The Arellano-Felix organization is accused of murder, kidnap and torture in order to maintain control of drug smuggling from Mexico to California. Greg Krikorian covers federal law enforcement and homeland security for the Los Angeles Times.